A Cross-National Analysis of Political and Civic Involvement Among Adolescents

Jo-Ann Amadeo is a faculty research associate in the department of human development and co-director of Advocates for Children-a living-learning program for students at the tJniversity of Maryland. She has worked on both phases of the IEA Civic Education Study and is co-author of the international report of the findings from the older adolescents. She can be contacted at jamadeo@wam.umd.edu. Encouraging the development of a meaningful citizen identity during adolescence has always been a challenge, but it has been especially perplexing in the last decade because of changes in political, economic, societal, and media institutions, in the expectations that adults have for young people, and in the expectations youth have for themselves. Much of the existing research on the development of political attitudes and behavior was conducted from 1950 to 1975 (and what follows is a very brief overview). Jennings and Niemi's work following secondary school students into adulthood was pivotal for political scientists (1974, 1981). Other research from this period suggested that schools contribute little to the civic education process (Langton and Jennings 1974) and that each young adult generation recreates itself in response to the political climate (Barnes and Kaase 1979). As more compelling issues and theoretical models took a central place on the research agenda, Cook (1985) commented that a "bull market" in political socialization research had become a "bear market." A few psychologists and educators continued to study politically relevant attitudes building on earlier studies using interviews (Connell 1971) and surveys (Hess and Torney 1967). In the early 1970s, a Civic Education Study organized by IEA (the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) tested 32,000 students in nine countries. That study concluded that an open climate for classroom discussion of controversial issues was especially likely to foster greater civic knowledge and less authoritarianism. A reanalysis of the 1971 IEA data from three countries, including the United States, showed that older students gave less positive ratings of both local and national government than younger students, were more comfortable with conflict in the political system, and showed more interest in political discussion (Torney, Oppenheim, and Farnen 1975; Torney-Purta 1984). Some psychologists suggested that the adolescent develops concepts in the political and economic domain through processes similar to those operating in other domains (Berti and Bombi 1988) and that background knowledge influences whether a socialization agent's message is understood or internalized. However, there was a gap of 15 years in research on the developmental perspective in political socialization. A ;'bear market" for psychological studies of political socialization appeared without an earlier "bull market." Since the early 1990s there has been new attention to research relating to the citizenship and political education of adolescents. Special issues of journals focusing on political socialization and engagement appeared (Haste and Torney-Purta 1992; Niemi and Hepburn 1995; Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss 2002). Qualitative studies identified the "hidden curriculum" and its political dimensions in informal and formal educational settings (Bhavnani 1991; Gordon, Holland, and Lahelma 2000). Conover and Searing's (2000) study contrasted four communities in the United States. Niemi and Junn (1998) analyzed 1988 NAEP data from high school seniors and found that taking civic-related classes in school made a difference for high school seniors' civic knowledge. Studies by FIahn (1998) and by Flanagan and her colleagues (1999) took a cross-national perspective, although no database for adolescents available in the mid1990s approached the scope of the World Values Survey of adults (Inglehart 1997). It was in this context that the IEA Civic Education Study began.